Lawyers Defending ExxonMobil Are Big Biden Donors

These are more of the facts that we need to know. And this is not surprising at all. Please follow the money, follow the money, follow the money! I believe it to be our civic responsibility and moral imperative to identify who is taking money from the Merchants of Death — those corporate and uber-wealthy interests who are in bed with the fossil fuel industry, the military industrial complex, Wall Street and the big banks, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, etc. May we all work strenuously to extricate ourselves, our government and media, and all who have enabled the trajectory that we have long been on — one which has us pointed off the cliff into our own extinction while taking most life on Earth with us. Another world is possible. It's up to us to unite in refusing to enable the status quo and instead engaging in every way possible in the courageous work of radically transforming ourselves, our nation, and, because we are all connected, our world. Everything we love and cherish is at stake. — Molly

Two of the Paul Weiss attorney who successfully defended ExxonMobil in New York against charges that it hid costs related to climate change have given maximum donations to former Vice President Joe Biden.
ExxonMobil prevailed on Tuesday in its legal battle against the state of New York, being found “not guilty” of misleading shareholders about the costs of climate change to its business.

The multiyear civil case, with New York seeking $1.6 billion in restitution to shareholders, marked only the second climate change-related lawsuit to reach trial in the U.S.  

As it defended itself against accusations of hiding information from investors, ExxonMobil was represented by attorneys from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garris, a law firm that hosted a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden in June and whose employees have given Biden and other Democratic candidates hundreds of large contributions.

Biden’s campaign has received at least $153,000 from Paul Weiss employees, including maximum contributions from two of the attorneys who argued on ExxonMobil’s behalf in the case, according to a review of Federal Election Commission data by LittleSis and Sludge. Lead attorney Ted Wells, who said in his closing statement that “ExxonMobil has done […] absolutely nothing wrong,” gave Biden’s campaign the legal maximum of $2,800 in May. Attorney Daniel Toal, who also represented ExxonMobil in the case, gave Biden $2,800 in April. 

Wells has also donated to other candidates who have qualified for the next Democratic debate, including a $1,000 contribution to the campaign of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and $500 contribution to South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Of the seven candidates who have qualified, Biden, Klobuchar, and Buttigieg have received the most money from Paul Weiss employees this year.

At his June fundraiser at Paul Weiss’ Manhattan office, Biden told the attorneys in attendance, “The fact of the matter is, you represent a lot of really good people, you represent a lot of people in need, you represent everybody.”

Paul Weiss is one of the most powerful law firms in the U.S. It specializes in representing corporate clients, including white collar clients facing government investigations and lawsuits. It was named “Law Firm of the Year” and “White Collar Litigation Department of the Year” this year by the American Lawyer.

Paul Weiss’s clients have included Citi, General Electric, Apollo Global Management, and a host of other powerful corporations and Wall Street firms. It recently advised CBS Corp. in its merger with Viacom, as well as former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn in his settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over Nissan’s underreporting of retirement payouts to Ghosn. Paul Weiss has also advised a group of Wall Street investors in Puerto Rico’s debt, known as the Ad Hoc Group of Puerto Rico General Obligation Bondholders.

According to OpenSecrets.org, Paul Weiss has been the top federal election contributor so far among U.S. law firms during the 2019-20 cycle.     

The New York case is not Wells’ first time defending ExxonMobil. According to his bio on the Paul Weiss website, Wells has been lead counsel for the company in “a series of unprecedented climate change-related matters, including an SEC investigation [that] concluded with a recommendation for no enforcement action, multiple state attorneys general investigations, and several mass tort actions.” Some of Wells’ other clients have included banking giants Citigroup and Bank of America and pharmaceutical companies Merck and Johnson & Johnson.    

Please continue this article here: https://readsludge.com/2019/12/10/lawyers-defending-exxonmobil-are-big-biden-donors/